“Once upon a time”, the stories always had a happy ending. “And they lived well and we lived better.” He said the end. Two trademark phrases of fairy tales and folk tales that are recognizable by young and old.
When you hear “once upon a time” nowadays, you probably think of Disney. Some of the Disney movies are inspired by Danish, German and French fairy tales and even changed their story to be more family friendly and a younger audience. The 1989 animated film The Little Mermaid, for example, does not include a single scene in which the mermaid has to answer the dilemma of whether to choose to kill the prince in order to return to life as a mermaid, according to Hans’s original tale. Christian Andersen of 1837.
However, the story of the opening phrase “once upon a time” goes far beyond Disney or the 200-year-old tales of Northern and Western Europe. Examining the origin and use of the phrase in the narrative, we can understand how and why it prevailed in our cultural consciousness until today.
Early reports of the most recognizable opening line in the world
It is estimated that the first use of the phrase “once upon a time” dates back to 1380 with the story “Sir Ferumbras”. Consisting of ten, 540 short lines of metrical poetry, this romanticism of Middle England is associated with France. “The Matter of France”, or “The Carolingian Circle”, is a collection of literature that surrounds the history of France, especially Charlemagne. In the phrase «Onys.. uppon a day… he slow kynges three». Another early reference to the phrase comes from 1566. Thomas Drandt, an English poet and clergyman, published A Medicinable Moral with the phrase: “Once on a tyme, a Greeke poeme I dreamed to indite».
It is believed that “once upon a time” was the opening phrase for many oral and written narratives from 1600. The phrase was used in the original English translations of many famous fairy tales. An example is the opening of the French author Charles Perrault, “il était une fois”. Pero wrote well-known stories such as Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Sleeping Beauty.
Also the famous author Charles Dickens probably contributed to the recognizability of the phrase. He writes in “A Christmas Carol”, published in 1843, “Once upon a time – from all the good days of the year, on Christmas Eve – old Scrooge was sitting busy in the place where he was counting his money.».
Translations and variations in other languages
The phrase is clear that it now has a global character and is a cultural heritage of humanity. After all, in the list of languages ​​that use the phrase the number reaches 88.
The tales of the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen begin, for example, with “Der var engang”, which means “once existed”. The Grimm brothers begin their stories with the German phrase “Es war einmal”, meaning “once upon a time”. In Spanish, the wording is “Érase una vez”, literally “once existed”.
Roger Abrahams’s book, African Folktales, discusses how 95 traditional and oral stories also have specific formulas. In Hausa (a language spoken in Niger, Nigeria and many parts of West Africa), stories begin with the phrase “One story, one story. “Let it go, let it come.” Yoruba (a language spoken by people in Benin, Nigeria and elsewhere) also begins with a similar opening “Here is a story! The story is “.
In Chile, the traditional opening is “Listen to him and tell him to teach”. Arabic folk tales also have a classic opening. Examples of this type from a 1986 collection are: “This happened or maybe it didn’t. “Time has passed a lot and a lot has been forgotten.”
Patterns in storytelling
Myths and fairy tales are historically the most common stories that begin with the phrase “once upon a time”. This observable pattern is a conscious choice made by the storyteller to help the reader.
Phrases that begin the story, such as “once upon a time”, were used by the narrators to indicate the beginning of a folk tale. Folk tales were considered separate from the legends because they were fiction. This distinction was especially important for the audience both in understanding and especially when she orally transmitted her stories to children.
In the basic elements of writing is space-time. The creators with the phrase “once upon a time” have already confused from the first line of their story with where and when it takes place. And from there on they go straight into the grill.
An expert in European folklore describes how the phrase is used as a narrative tool:
“In general, Westerners and Northern Europeans have told two kinds of stories: Folk tales and legends. Legends were believable and folk tales were the oral novels of the people. Boundaries were often blurred, so definitions are challenged by specific features, but bifurcation is useful in classification.
The opening sentence showed that there was no insistence that the story “really happened” at some point. Likewise, these stories would end with a similar construction would inform people that the fictional story had come to an end. “And they lived well and we lived better” is more familiar to the modern public.
The power of words
Author Maria Konikova believes that this simple phrase, “once upon a time”, has such a lasting power in stories:
“What exactly do the words promise?” Beyond the lure of the imagination and the fairytale, magical kingdoms and talking animals, why this phrase, this turn, this wording?
First, there is this appearance of distance. We are not in the now, but rather somewhere in the abstract past. And for a while. And secondly, there is the ambiguity, the deliberate lack of specific time. We are not talking about a definite time, a time that you can specify, but rather an indefinite moment. Not a land or a place you can find, but a kingdom, a land, a place that cannot be linked to a map. “
Konikova suggests that the exact phrase that causes distance and ambiguity is the one that allows readers to expand their imagination and connect with the story.
On a psychological level, distance helps us gain perspective. Psychologists advise people in stressful and embarrassing situations to take a step back and see the “bigger picture”. This technique is called psychological distancing.
The vague quality of the phrase that indicates an indefinite time makes the story accessible to readers. People do not need to be aware of current historical events or the environment as they begin the story and can only focus on the characters, plot elements and imagination. This technique therefore makes fairy tales so attractive to young and old readers. Ή listeners.
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